“E.U. Regulators Gonna Regulate”
This being my blog’s first “link post” strikes me as slightly unfortunate, as it’s not the most light and rosy of discussions to dive into. I did need something to eventually push me into the “type up your shortform take on an ongoing discussion” style of posts though, so here we are. Thanks Gruber! 😅
This past Friday, John Gruber responded on Daring Fireball to some proposed E.U. legislation that would force large tech companies to follow new guidelines around consumer-choice & competition. In Apple’s case, they’d need to begin following guidelines around allowing developers to access the iPhone’s hardware in the same sorts of ways Apple’s software does, and they’d need to provide alternative methods of installing software aside from the first-party App Store.
Gruber goes on to take issue with the proposed changes - which I think can be a valid stance depending on justification - but does so with some arguments that just don’t jive with me personally:
“This is bananas. All third party developers get control over the secure enclave and the software that controls it? Would be good to give them such control over the camera, microphone, and location data, too.
This is profoundly anti-consumer. Consumers aren’t asking for any of this shit. Actual people love their phones more than their computers — whether Macs or PCs — not despite the fact that their phones are tightly controlled consoles, but because they are tightly controlled consoles. These regulators don’t see it that way, because they’re idiots. They think they can legislate their way to a world where the iPhone (and Android, which is also console-like) remains far safer and more reliable than PCs while mandating that all the protections that have made them far safer and more reliable than PCs be removed. It’s absurd.”
Just initially, I take issue with equating Apple’s particular kind of walled-garden as holistically “Pro-Consumer,” making anything that threatens the streamlined first-party experience “Anti-Consumer” by default. Apple’s platform decisions range from some of the most-privacy-respecting implementations in the industry, to clearly opportunistic and based primarily in forcing folks to engage with them, their products, and their ecosystem above all else. I don’t see why addressing some of the egregiously anti-competitive rulings Apple has for their platform wouldn’t be possible while still keeping real system security locked down. It’s not all-or-nothing here.
The next part that jumped out to me is where John writes “Actual people love their phones more than their computers — whether Macs or PCs — not despite the fact that their phones are tightly controlled consoles, but because they are tightly controlled consoles.” which I think is just sort of assumptive, and likely wrong.
It’s true that widely people do spend more time on their smartphones and feel more strongly about those devices than traditional computers, but how much of that is due entirely to the form-factor? How much of that bond is because of all the new things smartphones allow people to do, and all the new places they’re able to do those things in? I seriously doubt the majority of users even have an opinion on the degree to which their device is cloistered and locked-down, much less enough of one to influence the reason they love their phone in the first place.
Regardless, I don’t envision a world where Apple’s streamlined ecosystem isn’t the default, emphasized experience on their devices out of the box, even in a world where they’re forced to level the playing field on how developers can compete with their first-party services and products. Those who don’t care, and who treat their device as a “consolized” experience (the folks Gruber insists love their phones oh-so-much because of its simplicity and safety) will still be provided it, I have zero doubt.
Why not allow users who do care a choice of services? I use an iPhone every day, I have for years, and I’d love to integrate my Dropbox account into iOS’s handling of syncing documents. iCloud Sync works great if you use all of Apple’s products, but throw a Windows PC or an Android device into the mix, and you’re out of luck. Not only that, but even on Apple’s platforms if you run into issues with iCloud Sync you’re left largely without recourse. Nearly all of Apple’s “it just works” solutions from Music Libraries to Photos to App Data don’t provide options to look under the hood and troubleshoot when something goes wrong. All you’re left with is the nuclear “sign out and back into your Apple ID” and “restore your device” options. Allowing the Dropbox developers to better integrate into the OS would alleviate a lot of my problems with getting data on and off my devices reliably, but in a lot of cases they’re not able to integrate with other applications the same way Apple’s iCloud Sync APIs can. Keeping quality developers from even attempting to make great software because they’re inherently on their back-foot against Apple’s offerings is just a poor state of things, and can only affect the third-party app ecosystem adversely.
Gruber and I obviously have different viewpoints. What it comes down to for me is that in order to wholly believe Apple’s justifications behind their integration, security, and software-quality rules, I think you’d need to exist in an alternate reality — one where tech giants haven’t been pushing against boundaries and common-sense consumer protections for years now under the same sorts of guises. That’s just not a reality we live in anymore, and I think the last decade in tech has proven that companies this large left to grow uninhibited don’t self-regulate in ways that do anything but help them grow larger, more popular, and more ubiquitous, with little regard to how that affects the world at-large.
It’s funny that Apple’s history features a line or two about “selling sugar water” to the world, because the best way I’ve been able to think about “big-tech” recently (from social media, to device manufacturers, to OS developers) is how we used to allow the Coca-Cola Company to put whatever they wanted in their drinkto get folks to enjoy and keep using it, but eventually realized that might not be what’s best for actual humans. How long until that realization comes to fruition for big tech?